The weather wasn’t what the forecast (10% chance of rain after 10AM) said it was going to be. We made it 15 minutes, barely out of town, before it rained, and rained, and when we got above tree line it turned to snow. If you zoom in on the sign, it says not to pick up a bomb.

Turned out there were two other couples in the same hotel that took an early breakfast with us, and lo and behold, appeared behind us on the trail once we rose out of the trees. We never got to talk with them because they remained the same distance behind the rest of the day.

Guide book says we gained 4,100′ but my gps says over 5,000 so I’ll have to get into the track details to see when it started recording. It took us 5 ¼ hrs with stops to reach the Foopass (Kev time was supposed to be 4 ½) but we had a number stops to put on more rain gear and then there’s the matter of 4 to 6″ of fresh snow for 90 minutes to the top.

Almost an equal distance down which went faster, it goes without saying. High points were watching the numerous rainfall induced waterfalls and rivulets cascading off the peaks, ridges and cornices. Oh, and Stanna really liked seeing the ten Swiss hiking ladies coming up the mountain sharing umbrellas. Sorry no photo of them, in fact it was difficult to get out our cameras from under the rain gear. And we saw our first glacier of the trip, a hanging one half way down into Elm at about 4,500′.

Hot shower and our new favorite piece of hiking gear, the hair dryer at the hotel made the day complete and ready for tomorrow. Here’ same view of the Valley we climbed up, just imagine the last 1,500′ all white with fresh snow.